Well, it’s finally happening folks, probably later than it should have but still, Nintendo has finally agreed to develop games for tablets and mobile devices.

In a press briefing yesterday, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced that they’ve teamed up with Japanese mobile gaming company deNA to bring Nintendo IPs to tablets and mobile devices. You won’t be seeing 3DS or WiiU games on these devices though as the two companies are developing new and original games based around these device’s strengths. So an endless runner featuring Mario characters? Yeah, that could totally happen. Angry Marios where you fling Mario inspired birds at weird looking Bowser pigs inside structures? Creepy, yes but also entirely possible.

Not wanting to upset traditional console gamers, Nintendo also announced that console games are still and always will be the primary focus of the company. To prove this, Nintendo revealed that they’re currently developing a brand new dedicated gaming platform with the code name “NX”. Don’t expect to hear much more on this potential new console as Nintendo will be revealing more next year.

So just how big is this news? Well, considering that just this morning, a radio station based entirely around sports in my area took a moment to discuss this, well, that’s really all you need to know. There’s no question that there’s a ton of money to be made in the mobile sector and with a name brand like Nintendo, it’s going to get a lot of attention from this huge market. It should also help these games rise to the top of app stores typically flush with junk.

While having access to Nintendo based games on mobile devices sounds pretty interesting and even though I own and use a smartphone quite often, I’m definitely someone that doesn’t really pay much attention to games on them. Outside of a few major cross over games like Fruit Ninja or Angry Birds, I’m not generally someone who pays much attention to anything related to the mobile market. Still, this announcement does make me a bit curious to see how Nintendo and deNA approach this market and if they dip their toes into the murky “Free-to-play” waters of game design. Just don’t expect an epic Legend of Zelda style journey on your phone.

Does this announcement change your stance on mobile games at all? Let me know what you think below.